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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Slalom 102 - 60 Days of Summer Day 15

I believe that I completed the Slalom 101 course yesterday with a Merit and today it was time to face new challenges offered by the Slalom 102 syllabus! With a little over a week until the Neil Pryde State Championships today was time to step up the training on and off the water. While I know that my technique will be rather rusty come race day I want to ensure that my fitness is top notch. I know that it is a grueling day of racing with 8 races to complete (4 in my division and 4 in age category) and the fitter I am the more consistent my pace will be. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while it will not come as a surprise that I feel that fitness will be one of my strengths because I (almost) obsessively train year round in the gym, on the road and in the pool; my GPS device has become one of my training partners and measures of success.

The first part of my training today was scheduled to be a long bike ride; Liz and I rode 26km including a long stint into the wind and then straight up Haleakala; tough but, great fun. We arrived home rather tired but both managed a sprint to the finish, Liz not happy with 26km carried on to Kanaha and back to make it 33km - nice work before breakfast!

Time for some food, rest and rehydration. During my break I went to collect the new prototype Black Project Fins that I will be testing in the coming days and weeks, they look amazing but more of that in tomorrow’s post.

My on water training today would focus on the turns as this is an area that I definitely need to improve and I wanted to try out the 6.6m and AA combo. There was a buoy set up at Kanaha on the inside which provided a perfect target and with a few others with the same idea often there were others at the mark which created some competition. I was less powered today and the turns were far more successful although I always seemed to fall when the sailor in front of me crashed, not sure why that was! My GPS is providing me with important feedback; my runs today were slower than yesterday in the 27-29 knot range but this was expected as I was working on a figure 8 course today and I was less powered. The 27cm Speed fin was definitely too small today and the new 32cm Race prototype will hopefully change things (the prototypes were being photographed today and were not available for on water testing).

I am getting more used to using the GPS and software and it is providing some great feedback, every flat water sailor should get one!

I was exhausted when I got home but I wanted to push myself a little more and powered down and Gatorade and some water; changed into my running kit and strapped my GPS to my wrist, I was ready to set off down the bike path to Kanaha once more. It was tough but with the wind on my back the first 3.5km wasn’t too bad although when I turned and had to run into the 20mph wind my legs really started to feel it, but with the help of a few good tracks on my iPod I completed the 7km course in 39min. I am not sure that I know a descriptive word to describe how I felt but all I could do was lie flat on my back for a while on our living room floor. Another Gatorade and a Powerbar later I did feel rather more human once more. Training for today was complete and that felt good!

Two Weeks – When I started the project I set out to motivate myself and others, see how much action I could get and have a ton of fun. In the last 2 weeks I have windsurfed everyday, hiked, surfed watched the sunset, ran, swam, biked and had a great deal of FUN. I have pushed myself to do new things and have been encouraged by the number of visitors to the blog on a daily basis. As we enter the 3rd week it is time to step it up a gear so watch out for some interesting posts in the coming week and please keep reading and remember to spread the word as your feedback is extremely motivating.

Facebook Advert – I teach Economics and Business Studies so as a marketing experiment I decided to create Facebook ad for the project, let me know if you see it and be sure to click through. These could be a great way for you to promote your business? I set a $2 a day budget and left it run for 7 days and paid 17 cents per 1,000 impressions. It took about 10 minutes to set up.

This could be a great way for you to target your customers.

Pic of the day

I talk a lot about Kanaha Park in my posts so thought that it would be a good idea to include a pic that I took one early morning a couple of weeks back.

Click to enlarge.

What’s up next? With the forecast for it to be flat and windy on the North Shore I expect that there will be some more slalom training tomorrow and I am keen to test the new 32cm fin but I also want to get out on my wave board and test the new 16cm twin fins, maybe I will be able to do both but I’ll have to wait to see what feedback my body gives me after today’s effort! A south swell is expected to arrive over the weekend and I would love to loose the sail for a few hours.